


I'm Waking Up (I Feel It In My Bones)

by xbedhead



Category: Justified
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-28
Updated: 2012-04-28
Packaged: 2017-11-09 21:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xbedhead/pseuds/xbedhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beta'd by the lovely <a href="http://norgbelulah.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://norgbelulah.livejournal.com/"><b>norgbelulah</b></a> (thank you so much) and written after some prodding (yeah right - I needed like...0% encouragement to write this *G*) from <a href="http://sardonicynic.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://sardonicynic.livejournal.com/"><b>sardonicynic</b></a>. This is kind of a companion piece to <i>The Lord of War and Thunder</i>, in which we see Raylan's life as a young adolescent. You don't have to read it to understand what's happening, but the point is that something had to have happened, something had to have changed within Raylan to go from being the passive recipient to someone who started fighting back.  This is that moment.  Title taken from an Imagine Dragons song, <i>Radioactive</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Waking Up (I Feel It In My Bones)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Lord of War and Thunder](https://archiveofourown.org/works/458794) by [xbedhead](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xbedhead/pseuds/xbedhead). 



~*~

He has no idea what he’s doing.

After all these years - _years_ \- and he thinks that…what, he can actually _stop_ Arlo? But he’d seen that fist, a fist he knew all too well, moving toward Aunt Helen and…well, that just wasn’t gonna happen.

As his own arm flies up he remembers a time when his mother had spent the entire afternoon cooking a fine supper – corn bread, collard greens, white beans, mashed potatoes, fried chicken. He’d peeled potatoes and picked the greens from the little garden behind the house – Momma’d even let him lick the bowl she’d done the Jiffy mix in. It was sweet, like cake batter almost. They’d swept the house from top to bottom and Raylan had been sneezing all day from the dust and heavy scent of Pine-Sol. His coloring books and toy horses were put away and his sugar-loaded cereal had all been eaten. Their ninety-day reprieve was over.

Arlo had got his release and she wanted everything to be perfect for him when he came home.

It was almost ten o’clock before Arlo set foot through the front door and it was obvious, even to him at eight years old, that the man had drank his evening away. Looking back on it now, he knows that his mother really couldn’t have done anything. Pork chops, Arlo’d said. Why hadn’t she made pork chops, didn’t she know anything? She’d argued that fried chicken was his favorite and that was the beginning of the end right then and there.

In a fit of fury with something silly like, _“Don’t you hit my momma,”_ , he’d reached up and wrapped himself around Arlo’s leg, done his best to trip the man up. But Arlo was strong as a bull, even more so when he was drunk, and just kicked him off, sent his fifty-pound frame skittering down the front hall and crashing into the screen door.

She’d lit into him like a wildcat after that, fingernails scratching, heels a-kickin’. When Arlo was down for a few seconds, she’d managed to push Raylan out the front door and onto the porch. When he sat up, he saw her sliding locks and twisting the deadbolt through the curtained glass. He’d beaten on the door and shouted and kicked, but they didn’t pay him any mind as they went at it. He fell asleep on the porch swing, rocking himself back and forth and trying not to be scared of the hoot owls, afraid because the house was finally quiet.

When his left hand closes around Arlo’s elbow, he remembers the way his _mother’s_ arm felt, wrapped around his shoulder as they’d walked home from Pine Mountain State Park. In a rare moment of cheerfulness, Arlo had suggested they take a drive, maybe have a picnic at the park and catch the last of the dulcimer festival. They’d packed the Styrofoam cooler with an ice block and loaded in the bologna and cheese, some saltine crackers, Oreos and a few bottled Cokes. Raylan sat between them on the bench seat of the pick-up truck and tried to cheer himself up, the appreciate the day for what it was…to ignore the tightening deep down in his gut he always got when Arlo had a smile on his face.

Of _course_ , the festival had ended the week before, though no one could convince Arlo of that – he knew what he’d heard from so-and-so at the general store and this was a crock of _bull_ shit. So he’d left Frances and Raylan for hours, in search of somebody who didn’t “have their head up their ass.” The cheese and crackers were long finished and the ice block was already melted; mosquitoes were beginning to buzz about. Dusk was coming, so they’d started up the path, hoping to make it to the information center near the front gate before it got too dark.

They’d walked down the winding one-lane road and even though he was eleven, he didn’t mind that his momma insisted on holding him to her. He’d rattled off the title of every hymn he could think of and she’d sung at least the first verse and chorus each time. The pavement was freshly laid and the night was breezy and he d tried to balance the cooler on his head, make her laugh a little. They hitched a ride home on the back of a pig truck headed for Noble’s Holler and he’d kept up his antics by doing impressions of Porky and the hogs that grunted behind them.

Arlo came home two days later looking a little worse for wear. He never said a word about it and they never asked.

And when he cocks his right arm back and readies himself to throw a punch, he remembers earlier that day when Bertram Hawes was on the ground by the baseball diamond and he could hear everyone around him urging him on. His chest was heaving and his hands were shaking; he could still hear the snide comments from that asshole, something rude, something condescending on account of him not buying a senior class ring…but that didn’t give him the right to go beating on him like he had.

When it became clear that the fight was over, the crowd dispersed and Bertie’d tucked his tail between his legs as they all trampled off to the locker room.

When he turned, he saw Boyd Crowder posted up by the dugout, one foot on the wall and cupping his hand around his mouth, trying to light a cigarette. He waved the match out and tossed it on the ground, nonchalant-like as he took a drag and blew it out the side of his mouth. Raylan thought for a moment Boyd actually looked kinda cool – not that he’d ever start smoking, not after watching his Uncle Ferris cough his lungs out.

“Got a nice right hook,” Boyd offered with a grin and Raylan didn’t quite know what to say.

He knew he pushed himself harder than anyone on the team, that he stayed late every day, getting in a few more pitches from the machine after the rest of them left. He knew he lifted more weights than anybody and that his clothes were a little tighter ( _the girls hadn’t minded that, so neither had he_ ). He also knew that what he did had precious little to do with baseball compared to the fact that he just didn’t wanna go home.

Raylan stood there, knuckles throbbing through the adrenaline that had begun to wear off. Boyd tipped the ashes from the end of his Pall Mall and pushed himself away from the cinder block building. They stared at each other for a moment until Raylan bent to pick up the cracked plastic helmet and baseball bat.

The pitching machine was still going and he stepped up to the plate, took a few more swings and connected with every one, sending line drives into the targets sewn in the back of the safety netting.

He heard Boyd let loose a whistle behind him and straightened, watching a pitch blow by him.

Boyd was smiling again (maybe he’d never stopped) and tossed his cigarette butt to the wet grass. “Your daddy know you can hit like that?”

The baseballs kept coming, dropping heavily to the turf as they whizzed by and ‘thunked’ off the tarpaulin backstop. Raylan watched Boyd’s slight form disappear down the sloping valley of the outfield, into the tree line that held a path to the Crowder homestead.

He lifted the bat again and readied himself for another pitch, but he swung and missed, just a half-second too late. The second pitch came just as fast, but he kept the bat perched on his shoulder. His heart wasn’t in it anymore. He was ready to go home.

Which brings him to this moment, when he has no idea what he’s doing, just riding on the instinct of being beat on for the past ten years. He’s the one that staggers back when his fist connects with Arlo’s jaw. He’s the one whose mouth drops open in shock of what he’s done.

But there’s a glint in Arlo’s eye and he knows what’s coming, so he readies himself and does something he’s never done before, not since it was just him – fight back. His punches are thrown wildly and Arlo lands a few more good ones. He’s flat on his ass and Arlo’s towering above him, lip bloodied and an evil in his smile as he lets out a little chuckle.

“Finally grow a pair, did ya, boy?”

They scuffle a few more minutes, furniture getting knocked over and bruises already starting to form, until there’s a cold splash of water that lands over both of them. They sputter and slip and sling the water and blood from their eyes.

“What the hell’s wrong with you, woman?” Arlo sneers.

Helen drops the metal bucket to the floor by her feet and shakes her head at the both of them. “Knock this shit off. Come by to make sure y’all are eatin’ and I end up in _this_ mess. Whoever’d heard of sucha thing,” she mutters, turning on her heels to go back into the kitchen.

Arlo pushes himself up with a curse, but Raylan stays on the ground, watches him as he disappears out the front door without a word. He lets himself wheeze a bit, to grunt out the pain that’s coursing through his midsection. He spits out a stringy wad of blood into the palm of his hand – it’s so bright – and wipes it on his jeans.

Through the doorway to the living room and on into the kitchen, he can see Helen as she’s rattling about the pots and pans, trying to find something to heat the casserole she’s brought over. He can tell she’s upset, so he clambers to his feet and sets to fixing the furniture as best he can. A vase by the foot of the steps is broken and his heart tugs a little at that – it had been his mother’s and he can remember the auction she’d bought it at, proud that she’d landed such a fine little piece for a dollar-sixty. He rights the table it had been sitting on and picks up the pieces, puts them in the empty water pail that he places by the door.

She wanders back from the kitchen and he can smell the tuna fish as it heats. He straightens the rug in the front hall with his toe and the place looks…better. Not quite right, but it’s better than a few minutes ago.

Helen’s staring at him, her eyes unreadable, and he straightens, puzzled by the way she’s acting. It’s not like this is the first time he and Arlo’d had a row – definitely won’t be the last. But…he thought she’d be happy, maybe even proud of him for finally standing up to him, for letting some of that piss and vinegar she always said he had shine through. Instead he sees something else, some kind of weird…disappointment, maybe even dread and he doesn’t quite understand.

He catches something, something sharp in his ribs when he turns and there’s a moment when it hurts to suck in a breath. “You all right?” he pants.

“No, Raylan, I’m not,” she answers almost immediately before plopping down in the armchair and reaching for her purse. It’s been upturned in all the mess, but she fishes out her cigarettes through all the folded up napkins and melted Butterscotch and lights one with a shaky hand. She looks at him long and hard and that fear’s still there. “ _Jesus Christ_.”

He doesn’t know what she means, but there’s something there, something heavy and he knows that, with whatever’s happened tonight…everything’s changed.


End file.
